JAPANESE HIGH LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE CARGO HEADING TO TROUBLED
EUROPEAN REPROCESSING FACTORIES OF LA HAGUE AND SELLAFIELD
Amsterdam, August 7, 1997 -- Greenpeace has revealed that a new
Japanese shipment of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel,
bound for European reprocessing factories, is scheduled to enter
the Panama Canal on the afternoon of Friday, August 8. The
shipment of four spent fuel containers is due to arrive in
Europe in approximately two weeks time. The containers are
destined for the La Hague (operated by COGEMA, France) and
Sellafield (operated by British Nuclear Fuel , BNFL, United
Kingdom) reprocessing factories.
La Hague reprocessing factory has recently been under fire due
to Greenpeace revelations that COGEMA's discharges are 17
million times more radioactive than normal sea water and that
sediments sampled around the discharge pipe showed radioactive
contamination of the marine environment. An independent research
from Pr Viel had previously found a leukaemia cluster in the
region around the French reprocessing plant, while a recent
study from the British Department of Health (1) has found traces
of plutonium from the Sellafield reprocessing factory in teeth
of children throughout Britain.
The Pacific Pintail, a British-flagged vessel owned by Pacific
Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL), left Shika nuclear power plant
(2) on July 15, amidst public protest against the ship's
departure. The four spent fuel containers - two TN-type casks
bound for France and two Excellox casks bound for Britain - are
tested to conditions far below those present in an accident and
represent a potential safety hazard.
"Spent nuclear fuel shipments pose multiple environmental and
security risks and must be halted," said Mike Tannsley of
Greenpeace. "By transporting these dangerous materials to
Europe for reprocessing, Japan is simply transferring an
environmental risk to other countries while adding to the
already-vast stockpile of weapon-usable plutonium of COGEMA and
BNFL".
Countries along routes of high-level nuclear waste shipments
have long-protested the risks posed to them due to threat of
accidents in transit. Many countries, including regional
governmental associations such as the South Pacific Forum and
the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), have issued statements
against such transports, yet Japan, Britain and France persist
with these dangerously radioactive transports.
Japan is reported to be near the end of spent nuclear fuel
shipments to COGEMA and BNFL under current reprocessing
contracts (of 7100 metric tonnes of spent fuel). Both BNFL and
COGEMA representatives have recently been to Japan to encourage
new reprocessing contracts, which would result in new waves of
shipments, continued discharge of nuclear waste into the
environment and further stockpiling of weapon-usable plutonium.
"Japan and all client states (3) must stop negotiations with
COGEMA and BNFL for new reprocessing contracts," said Tannsley
"Countries engaged in reprocessing are guilty of dumping their
nuclear waste problems on France and Britain, with resultant
discharge into the sea of radioactive waste. This irresponsible
practice must cease."end
NOTES
(1) The study, entitled "Variations in the Concentration of
Plutonium, Strontium-90, and Total Alpha-emitters in Human Teeth
Collected within the British Isles", has been published in The
Science of the Total Environment Journal.
(2) Shika nuclear power plant is located on the west coast of
Japan on Ishikawa Prefecture's Noto Peninsula. Shika is a
boiling water reactor (BWR) which began commercial operation in
1993 and is owned by the Hokuriku Electric Power Company.
(3) In addition to its domestic contracts, La Hague has also
received irradiated fuel and reprocessed plutonium for Germany,
Japan, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Spain.
Sellafield has signed plutonium reprocessing contracts with
Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and The
Netherlands
Andrew Hund
http://cwolf.uaa.alaska.edu/~asajh/AKD/
http://cwolf.uaa.alaska.edu/~asajh/Soc/